LOUISVILLE - If it wasn't obvious before, then
recent reports of very young children being abused in the Jefferson
County Public Schools' Head Start program absolutely must seal the
deal for a state takeover of this broken, failing and unsafe school
district.

At least it's unsafe for the young
preschool girl whom the Courier-Journal recounted was "swatted"
on the head by an instructional assistant at the Dawson Orman
Education Center and, as it was reported to the district,
"inadvertently" struck her head on some furniture and
bruised a lip.

It's also unsafe for 3-year-olds to
fall asleep on JCPS Head Start cots at naptime because they could be
dumped out of their cots by an instructional assistant not wanting to
properly wake them.

A recent federal report released
indicates the instructional assistant "picked up the cots and
let the children roll to the floor."

More than 40 cases of physical abuse
and neglect in the district's troubled Head Start program have been
reported in the past 18 months, including that of a 3-year-old boy at
Tully Elementary, whose instructor forced him to eat a piece of wet
fruit when he wouldn't quit pouring milk on it.

"When he wouldn't stop, the
teacher scooped the damp fruit off the table, wrapped her arms and
legs around the child, and forced him to eat the food," the
newspaper reported.

It's impossible for the grandfather
writing these words to describe in a family-friendly publication the
action he would take were he to arrive to pick up his
toddler-grandson only to find out the little guy had been dumped out
of a cot or clenched by an adult.

Federal Head Start officials had warned
JCPS that one more case of reported abuse would endanger the
district's $15 million program grant.

Perhaps the best case for a state
takeover of the school system is the way the JCPS Board of Education
responded to the reported abuse and the feds threat.

Realizing there were two more reported
abuse cases in the pipeline and that it would likely lose the $15
million grant, the board preempted the feds' move by returning the
grant and moving $8 million from the district's general fund to
expand another current early childhood program, thus taking away
funding from other needed projects.

The board's discussion and vote on this
issue reflect the cultural malady affecting the whole district –
from preschool through 12th grade of seeming more focused on saving
adult jobs rather than protecting and educating children.

Moving the $8 million likely won't
diminish the chances of school board members getting votes in the
next election from adults whose jobs are spared.

It is any wonder why citizens,
taxpayers and parents cannot – and should not – have an ounce of
confidence in this system?

The board's decision to forego the $15
million grant is also largely about covering up the problems and
avoiding the possibility of a national spotlight shining on what Rep.
Phil Moffett, R-Louisville, said in a Facebook post would be the only
one of the nation's 1,600 school districts to get kicked out of Head
Start.

The JCPS school board missed an
opportunity to grab the high ground in this situation by not only
running from scrutiny of its Head Start operation, but also by
failing to investigate whether similar problems might also lie
unreported in the district's other, state-funded preschool program.

JCPS' response to this situation makes
it clear: the Kentucky Board of Education must intervene.

Failure to intercede would make the
state board itself an enabler of the abuse and neglect in Head Start,
as well as a party to problems in the district's other state-funded
preschool program that likely are just as troubling.

Jim Waters is president and CEO of the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, Kentucky's free-market think tank. Read previous columns at www.bipps.org. He can be reached at jwaters@freedomkentucky.com and @bipps on Twitter.

I happen to know from personal experience that for some of the Republican Leadership this is all about the students and the teachers, about making sure the funding and support reaches all the way down to them (instead of putting even more of our Educational Funding into the pockets of the NEA and KEA, who do very very well for themselves). The only goal that matters is giving our students an effective education (teaching them life skills which include problem solving skills and thinking for themselves, and as they grow up through the levels making sure they are able to work a trade or at least have the knowledge needed to be able take care of themselves). Then making sure that the teachers have what they need to accomplish this, while making sure they are paid and supplemented at a comfortable rate, a reasonable rate. This goal would be easy to meet if both the Unions and the general public were on the same page, but the Unions are in this for themselves. So if "breaking" the Unions is the only way to accomplish this for the future of our children, grandchildren, their children,,, then so be it. But doesn't have to be that way, the choice is theirs to make. When you hear that Education is "under funded", just keep in mind that this is where that mantra starts, and when the increases in that funding ends up; https://www.unionfacts.com/employees/National_Education_Association

I am touched by the Republicans' newfound concern for the children of Jefferson County. There are schools in highly-Republican counties of Eastern Kentucky that have been failing since their inception, but the Republican leaders never advocated taking them over. This is all about trying to break the teachers' union and pave the way for a permanent Republican majority in Frankfort.

I'm against child abuse but sometimes drastic measures are needed. They are especially needed in a roomful of 3 yr olds with mamas who think they can do wrong, who have never been disciplined properly and are behaving like a bunch of wild animals. I think it is called self preservation. I think we need to get back to allowing teachers to spank kids. Isn't the writer of this article an advocate for charter schools so his friends can make money?